


here's to the past

by demoncat22



Category: Merlin (TV), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Reincarnation, Stiles-centric, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 09:59:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6001773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demoncat22/pseuds/demoncat22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mścisław doesn't know it, but the memories will always find him. It just so happens that in this life, he'll be grateful for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	here's to the past

**Author's Note:**

> Tags, relationships and/or ratings will be added/changed if necessary.

Mścisław dreams of brown _(broken)_ tents and cheap tunics hanging from a clothesline. He dreams of a woman with bright eyes _(blank_ _eyes)_ and rough hands. She’s talking to him in a different language _(dead language)_. She has a large figure, and she towers over him when she catches him at the river alone, tugging him away firmly _(“ **What have I told you, boy, it is not safe**.”)_ and punishing him by letting the other children have his dinner.

_(There are shouts, the clothesline is torn down, and the entire thing is loud and **awful**.)_

_(There’s blood on his face.)_

 

* * *

 

It's one of the days his dad has time for him and mum.

They go to the park – him, mum and dad, together. It's nice, cause usually, they don't have time for games. Tata is very busy, all the time, and he can't be mad at him because he's spending his time catching the bad guys. Mama is busy too, but she works at home, so he can always sneak into her lap while she powers up the computer. She lets him talk.

His knees are entrenched in sand, his fingers gritty.  Mummy and daddy are buying a drink, just a few feet away, and they promised to get him something too. Something cold, definitely. He swipes his tongue over his lips for the hundredth time, determined to dig until he's able to touch and _see_ the bottom of the green box.

The sun beats down on his back, and hearing William Carrey and Geoffrey Cody laugh together makes him wish he has someone beside him to laugh with too. Heather and her family went on a road trip days ago and aren’t going to be back until school starts again.

"Hey there."

He looks up at the cheery sound instinctively, amber eyes squinting at the tall man blocking out the glare of the sun. His face is shrouded in darkness because of it, but he can see the faint twinkle of blue eyes.

In his surprise, he knocks over his bucket of sand – it's his own bucket, he brought it to the park with him, cause the ones they leave in the sand box are always dirty and broken in _some_ way - and everything falls right over the hole he's dug with the purple shovel. It lands with a soft thump.

He'll have to start all over again now!

"L- look what you _d-did_!" he cries in dismay, eyes snapping up to glare at the man, who crouches down next to him. To think he had been going to let the man play with him!

He doesn’t want anyone to play with anyway! Especially not this man – he has a smarmy face. It's sharp, and flawless unlike his own mole-dotted one. He looks like how Jackson looks whenever his mum buys him new shoes.

He doesn't like him.

"Sorry." the man laughs. "What were you doing?"

"I was digging- digging a hole." he says derisively, his arms crossed and fingers curled around his shovel.

The man cocks his head to the side, eyes squinting at him. "Why?" he asks, and Stiles hesitates the biting retort that had been waiting to burst from him.

Someone's listening to him! Someone's talking to him and asking him what he's doing. He looks back down at his shovel. "I want to see the bottom." he explains, rubbing the palm of his hand against the sand. "Cause- see, i've never seen the bottom, of the- of the box. There has to be one cause, cause we're in a box, and a box always has an end and a begi- be- begin-ning, but all there is, is sand."

He nods at the man to see if he had understood. He knows people don’t always understand him, his words often fail him, breaking apart in his mouth, and he knows he needs to talk slowly, talk carefully, but the man nods with him.

"Don't you want to build something instead?" the man asks him, which is a stupid question.

"You can't build anything with this sand." he tells the man, willing to be patient, because sometimes, grown-ups have a harder time understanding things. They don't know things sometimes, even if they seem like they do. "It's dry and terrible."

"What if I could?" the man asks.

He wrinkles his nose, leveling his most superior look at the man. He doesn't use his superior look often. Mommy says it isn’t nice to look at someone that way, even though they totally deserve it for not knowing easy words- Lydia’s the only one who knows what he talks about- "You can't." he answers, when he realizes he’s gone off topic again, and in his own head.

"But what if I could?" the man repeats, and he sees that smile! He sees it.

He huffs, shuffling back to create more space. Fine. _Fine._ If the man wants to build something then let him try. They never listen. He flaps a hand at the man, says with a smug grin: "Go."

The man bops him on the nose with a long finger, and he jerks back at the sudden touch, an arm coming up to rub his nose self-consciously. His lips pushes out in a pout, but he won't be distracted, no sir! He won't be distracted, but… he's less willing to see the man crash and burn in his own humiliation-

The sand rises; piling into a large mound.

His mouth falls open, startled.

It moves like it has its own mind and Stiles wants to shrink back, suddenly afraid. A hand settles gently over the small of his back, a warm encouragement, and it's what makes him stay, because this is something _new_. Something exciting.

He sees it burrowing into itself to carve a shaky circle, a moat; see it carve archways and gates. It drags lines across tiny windows and faux doors.

It's not some sort of sand monster.

It's a _castle_.

A thin gasp rips from his lips; it sounds so ridiculous that he quickly clamps his hands over his mouth when he hears it, wanting to take it back.

The sand at the playground is stubborn, has always been stubborn. It has never yielded to him. But now, it twists and turns to form towers that reach his chin, form a wall with little guards standing diligently at the top.

His wide eyes darts to the man beside him, thinking _look,_ thinking _see-_

The man smiles at him; his baby blue eyes are a sudden, startling gleaming gold.

 

* * *

 

John entwines their fingers together, teasing her on the rather obvious crush one of the children at the library has on her. It’s little Jess from Wellstone Street, who runs up to her with pretty stones and a determined pout. She declares – much to the chagrin and horror of her parents and the disapproval of the general public – that she’ll challenge John for Claudia, in a duel to the death. It’s all harmless, of course.

John thinks it’s hilarious.

She brings the cup of lemonade to her lips, determined to keep herself from pinching her dear husband in the side.

That’s when she sees him, for the first time in 2 decades.

 

* * *

 

Mścisław dreams of being a little boy with blue eyes ( _pale blue, almost green, instead of light brown_ ) and floppy brown hair.

It’s a world where fire dances at his fingertips, where his mother ( _it’s not Mama, it’s not wavy brown hair and crooked smile, it’s someone else but here, in dreams, she’s his mother_ ) conjures butterflies for him when thunder growls overhead. He doesn’t have a constellation of moles dotting his face, only small tattoos curling up his arms. He dreams of a father with a head of grey curls picking mushrooms with him _(“ **Run**!”) _ laugh lines running along his face, a small scar on the edge of his square jaw _(there's a loud thud, like an axe slicing through skin, flesh and bone-)_

 

* * *

 

“Mama.”

Mummy hums under her breath when he wiggles his way into her arms, pulling him into a hug even when her eyes stay on the newspaper. She presses a kiss to the top of his head. “Yes sweetheart?” she acknowledges.

“I dreamt you were a princess.” He says, just out of bed, pajamas sticking to his sweaty skin. His mouth tastes like _death_ but he will not, _not_ , go brush his teeth! Nope! He just wants mummy to know about the dream, before he forgets it. He knows he has to hurry, because sometimes, dreams go away and they never come back.

“You had- had a castle.” His words stumble past his lips in his hurry to get them all out. “It was a giant castle! It was- it had flags. It wasn’t a very nice castle, it was a bad place- but you were- good, and nice. There were knights, with swords, they were scary, they were so scary- and there was-”

Mummy looks down at him, a furrow to her forehead. The paper crinkles as she closes it slightly. “What are you talking about, Mścisław?”

The sound of his name makes him beam at her, because she says it so surely, without the stutters and the weird faces. She says it and he knows it means she loves him _,_ because while everyone else laughs and frowns, Mummy and Daddy knows – cares – to say it right.

“You were a princess! Onl- only you had a _sword._ You had green eyes, really long hair. You didn’t have these-” he reaches up with his finger to prod at the dark moles that dot Mummy’s jaw, just like his own, stark against his pale skin. “-but you were still pretty,” he reassures her, because she’s starting to look a bit pale herself. “You were taller and your face wasn’t your face, but I knew it was you. I knew it was you but- but you were a princess-”

“Mścisław.” Mummy says softly, her hands cupping his face, and she looks _afraid_ all of a sudden. It makes his heart stutter in his chest, his stomach roll. “Sweetheart, these dreams, have you had others?”

“What do you mean?” he asks, uncertainly, because all his dreams are pretty awesome, and he doesn’t know what she’s asking for. “Dreams? Other dreams?”

“Dreams with me in it.” She says quietly, her lips thin and pale. “When I’m a princess.”

He wrinkles his nose as he tries to remember, his bright eyes going to the ceiling. “No.” he muses, remembering the clash of metal, a hand over his lips as he hid in the dark. “Only today. Why?” he asks his mother, tipping his head up as he whispers: “Is it special?”

“They are special.” Mummy answers after a while, after a _long_ time. She looks down at him with warm brown eyes and presses a kiss to his forehead. Her hair tickles, so he squeals and squirms away. “They’re special but you must remember, Mścisław – they can’t hurt you. What happened then, they’re past.”

He clambers back into her lap, curious.

Her fingers smooth over his hair gently. “You’re my Mścisław – my sweet boy. You can’t forget that.”

 

* * *

 

Claudia watches the little speck – _her_ little speck – running around the park, just a small figure tumbling around the leaves. Her fingers are entwined together on her lap, a sunhat dipped low to shield her eyes from the smoldering rays of the sun. Although she does join in with the community mothers every once in a while, she enjoys her solitude immensely; today is one of those days where she’d rather sit alone.

Mścisław is _growing_.

He wakes up with his- _dreams_ more and more frequently – there’s an entire life’s worth of memory that is catching up to him, all at once – and she _worries_ about him.

She doesn’t want him to become entangled in things long gone. Children should stay children – bright-eyed and beautiful. Curious and eager. He didn’t have a chance to just _be,_ last time, all for the wrath of a lonely man.

She doesn’t want it to be like that again.

She has him now, will protect him now, but it isn’t enough. She is only _human_ , without the glow of magic in her veins – she cannot keep him from what finds him in his sleep, but she wants to. She wants to try everything to help him, because she knows she had failed before.

Claudia shakes the cobwebs of memories away, her fingers tightening.

“It won’t be very bad for him, you know.” Someone says quietly behind her; the lilt is enough to identify him, so she turns around reluctantly to greet the sympathetic smile of an old enemy ( _and an old friend)._

It bothers her that he keeps his old name. Somehow, she can’t imagine him ever looking any different than how he does now – if she had known him to be an immortal then, she wouldn’t have been so hasty to oppose him. Or maybe she would have been. Her memories of being someone else are blurred at best. To recall how she looked like then is to recall how she looked like 20 years ago, when she was 11.

He’d deigned to call her anything but Claudia. He’d said that was how the others had preferred it, and winked as if he knew she’d be the same.

“What does that mean?” she asks with an edge to her voice, her gaze going back to Mścisław. “He’ll grow up with memories of being someone else. He’ll grow up, and he won’t be normal. Wasn’t the first time enough?”

“People can chose to forget.” He says simply, leaning a leather-clad hip against the edge of the bench. He’s wearing a _flower_ _crown_. “The memories come at a young age – when it ends, people either remember them or they don’t.” he shrugs, like it doesn’t matter what they do. She knows he must mind though, how can he not? Everyone else forgetting, while he stays, alone.

“But there are things we did-” she stops, her lips lifting in a smile when her Mścisław turns around to wave a leaf at her. She nods, one of her hand coming up to return his jiggle. She stays quiet for a while when her boy turns around to wander around the bushes, her words slowly coming back to her.

While she thinks, the steady presence of an immortal keeps her grounded. He doesn’t say a thing while she collects herself – she supposes that after all those years of waiting, a few minutes is hardly anything.

“There are things _he_ did, that he doesn’t need to know about now.” She says, looking up at him.

He stares after Mścisław, who is back at the sandbox. Her boy loves that place, especially if there’s no one else there with him. He likes the space to make whatever he wants, without having to share it. She’s still trying to instill in him that sharing is caring- she’s trying to make him into the best little man he can be, because she knows that’s all _he’d_ ever want, to be a good man.

“I have memory spells.” She hears that quiet voice say absently; she can hear reluctance in his voice, and it startles her to remember that while she has lost all her magic, he has not. “If you want them.”

All she wants is Mścisław to be happy. All she wants is Mścisław to stay how he is now, her bright little boy with the world at his fingertips. She can barely stand it when he sneaks into her and John’s room with red-rimmed eyes, sniffling about _bad_ _men taking him away_ from his _family_. She doesn’t like when he stops being happy and starts being somber, starts being someone who asks questions like _why don’t people come back from playing in the woods, why did people want to burn us? Why don’t they get up after they play with swords?_

“What will it do to him?” she asks slowly, unable to meet his eyes. She knows that he’s been playing with Mścisław, that he’s trying to- to make amends, for what he’s done before. She knows that if she takes him up on his offer, she’s taking Mścisław away from him.

“The memories are just,” she sees him move his hands around out of the corner of her eyes, trying to find a word to describe it to her. “Just _indents_ , from our past lives. Most people have them, but as we grow up, they fade away, unless we make a point of remembering them. _I_ think, that it’s the fact that you were all related to me, in some way, which makes the indents stick, longer than it usually does. If I were to suppress it, I would just be blocking it. Since it never really had the chance to resurface fully, it would always be _there_. Like,” he pauses, visibly struggling with his words again. His hand reaches up to scratch the back of his ear.

“Like a wall.” He finally says. “The wall won’t ever fall, since _I_ put it there, but the memories are still there. I’d say he’d dream about it sometimes, but he won’t be able to recall it fully. Just snatches.”

She watches Mścisław lie down in the sandbox, staring upwards at the sky. She can’t bring herself to be angry at him for it, although she knows she’ll have to be the one to clean the sand from his clothes, his hair.

From afar, she can see his lips move, see Mścisław singing to himself.

Beside her, Mścisław’s godfather – who else would he be? It had meant the world to him, and she loves him still – is _still_ talking. He’s rambling on about being a psychiatrist. He has a bachelor’s degree in science. She hasn’t heard him chatter like this in a _long_ time – he’s become somewhat quiet, she’s noticed, in a way he never used to be.

“Do you think I should?” she asks quietly, interrupting him in his saying ‘ _I don’t have_ _personal experience on these spells, but I think the people who’ve asked me for it are quite happy now. I check in on them sometimes, and they’re okay. I check in on everyone, actually-’_

He shrugs, not at all fazed to have been interrupted.

“I’m not unbiased enough to give you a good opinion.” He tells her, just as Mścisław pulls himself up from the sandbox and shakes himself off like a puppy.

She adores him.

“I don’t want him to be different.” She confesses, because she knows even now that different is often confused for _bad._ She has seen it with her own eyes growing up – sexualities and race and gender. This is just something else that Mścisław has to fight against.

“Everyone is a little bit different.” Merlin answers, sounding wistful. “And completely alike, at the same time.”

 

* * *

  

Mścisław dreams of running, _always_ _running_.

There are people in robes and capes around the clearing, the moon casting long shadows across their face, but they’re looking down at him with fearful eyes, icy eyes. He begs for a place in their camp ( _his own is gone; the one he was born in and the one that found him after)_ , tells them he has no one left (“ ** _I’ll keep out of your way, I promise, I promise I will- I’ll fetch the water, clean the clothes-_** ”) and they call him snake, call him enemy. They’re afraid- _of him,_ and he doesn’t understand why.

None of them will take him in.

 

* * *

 

“How old are you?” he asks the man curiously, words coming out mumbled as he gnaws on the straw between his lips, his fingers curled safely around his cup. “Why do you look the same?”

He doesn’t remember for a moment that what he’s saying doesn’t make sense to anyone else. Only mama and tata know about his dreams. His dreams don’t make sense either. Dreams are dreams- he mustn’t confuse dreams with real life.

“I’m immortal.” The man answers cheerily, not skipping a beat; he narrows his eyes at the angular face. “I can’t actually remember how old I am.”

Huh.

Both of them watch his mum and his dad dig up the garden looking for a mole, their faces smudged with dirt. They’re laughing, making jokes he’s too far away to hear, and he wants to run over, but he doesn’t want to interrupt them. Every so often, Mummy will look over, like she’s making sure they – him and the man with golden eyes – are both still sitting quietly on the porch. The man has his own cup of orange juice but he doesn’t touch it. He’s quiet this time.

“Cause I dreamt about you.” Mścisław says carefully, looking back down at his paper, at his crayons. “I dreamt about mummy too but she- she looked different- like, she had another, another face, but you, you’re the same.”

He looks up, ready to explain that usually, almost _always,_ people look different, but he stops.

The man is frowning at him.

He looks scared, almost, the way Mummy had looked when she found out about his dreams. His forehead furrows, the bright smile fading away. The man looks strange without it. “Your memories are coming back.” He says, sounding almost resigned as he leans in, but something in his blue eyes make Mścisław want to cower.

He ducks his head, sorry he brought it up at all.

“You shouldn’t be afraid of me, you know.” The man says – he’s probably trying to sound kind, because adults always lower their voices that way when they try to sound kind, but he just sounds worried and sorry. “I won’t hurt you.”

“In my dream,” he says quietly, drawing nonsensical circles onto his paper. Pretending he’s working very hard. “You were there, and you helped me, with, with… with- be-because I was lost, and people were after me, and you saved me and you brought me to Mama- to mummy,” he corrected, because mama was what he called mummy and no one should ever hear it, except daddy. “’Cept she wasn’t mummy, she was- she was a princess. And I didn’t know her at all. And you were my friend, I saw you and I knew you were going to help me because- because you were nice.”

He chances a glance up, and the man smiles at him. It’s not his usual grin – it’s not large and filled with too much teeth, like he’s forgotten how to smile, like he’s just mimicking what he saw everyone else do.

It’s small, just a tiny curve of his lips. It makes him look softer, less like a stranger.

“Sometimes good people turn into bad people, and they don’t mean to.” The man says quietly, head tilted to the side as he watches him. His smile is barely there now.

Mummy throws a wad of dirt at Daddy in the background.

The man sighs, a short tired exhale, as he reaches out for his glass of orange juice. “I made mistakes.” He head is turned away. “I made a lot of them. But I’m older now. I’m… _wiser._ ” He laughs at himself at the last word, looking back at him.

He frowns at the pathetic smile the man has on. It’s one of the worst smiles he’s ever seen.

“I’m different.” A hand smoothes over his hair, gently petting. “I’ll take care of all of you.”

 

* * *

 

Mścisław dreams of sitting in the woods, laughing with a twelve year old girl; three years younger than he is and yet she still stands taller.

She has an abundance of dark curls and wide blue eyes, filled with wonder at his stories, at the clans he’s been in and the people he’s met. (He knows she’s Theo, _Raeken_ – they’re different, faces and names, but he always knows.)

She meets with him in the dark, when the stars are bright and the others ( _furtive glances, whispers that tell children to **stay** **away** **from** **him**_ ) are asleep. She draws letters into the dirt, teaching him what none of the elders will. She tells him she’s going to marry Amaryllis – who threw an apple at him once – when she leaves the camp, and that he has her curls and that makes them even more of a family.

_(“They **can’t** kick you out!”)_

Mścisław dreams of Kara- Theo- **_Kara_** throwing a rock at the elders, for telling him to leave.

 

* * *

  

He finds Theo tripping over a new boy in the school yard.

The boy, with round, pink cheeks and flattened hair, glares up at Theo while the blond lets out a snorting laugh. Mścisław doesn’t think he’s ever seen him around before, and he’s not in his class. He had an ice lolly in his hand; it’s kicked just a few feet away.

Theo’s little group – because Theo has his own group of course – laugh with grating, obnoxious giggles.

For a moment, he can’t help watching the way Theo’s thin lips curve. Smiles make everyone look beautiful, even for bullies like Theo. Maybe _especially_ for bullies like Theo. His dark eyes twinkle gleefully; his hair shines like threaded gold. Mścisław has played with him before, unable to help himself – Theo, though he laughs at the tongue-twister that is his name, gets inexplicably furious when the other children do it too.

He tears himself away when a full-body shudder settles through the boy on the ground.

His face is a blotchy red, even this far away. Mścisław can see his fingers dig into the ground tightly as he glares downward, tears gathering at the edges of his eyes. His lips, though pressed thin, tremble. He doesn’t know that the laughing children are dumb, but he’ll learn. His shuddering makes the boys laugh even harder.

He abandons Heather where they had been playing hopscotch, feeling her follow him curiously. It’s unusual, how the boy keeps twitching, almost convulsing on the ground. It’s not tears- tears don’t work like that. The teachers don’t see him, crowded by the group of students – the teachers don’t see a lot.

He quickens his steps, almost to a jog, mostly because he’s getting worried as the laughter dies down, and the twitching still continues. He wiggles his way through the crowd, falling to his hands and knees to crouch beside the boy, he offers a hand. It’s almost worth it to hear Theo’s giggle falter.

The boy is crying, but he’s gasping too. It’s a rattling sound that frighten Mścisław more than his dreams do.

“I don’t think he’s okay.” Heather mumbles beside him. When the boy starts coughing, with full-body jerks that makes him flinch backwards, she turns around quickly to bellow for Mrs Clara, who is supposed to be on duty today.

Tuesday is Mrs Clara day.

Her scream makes more than one teacher scurry for them, and almost all of the children scatter.

In the end, Mścisław doesn’t try to befriend Theo – he befriends Scott.

 

* * *

 

 Mścisław dreams of gold coins digging into his palm, of large men in furs and silk clapping him on the shoulder ( _he wants them off- off)_. He dreams of looking himself in the mirror and putting on dark cloth, leather, smiling wolfishly at his reflection _(He’s stolen from three Lords and two Ladies and there’s more than enough to last him years)_.

He dreams of a curved sword strapped to his belt, of only ever being able to fall asleep with it beside him, of scrubbing his darkened, calloused hands ( _crying, someone’s crying-)_ in cold water because all he can see is _(blood)_ red _(life)_ spilling everywhere.

(His dad finds him screaming – he’s wet the bed.)

 

* * *

 

“If I do bad things, you’ll have to lock me up.” He whispers, large amber eyes liquid and unblinking as he slips into his parents’ bed, his dad helping him up gently. His mum is asleep, a warm weight beside him. He presses against her and she shifts for him.

“Is this about your dreams?” Tata asks him softly, expression gentling into something concerned. The shadows don’t make him look scary. “You know what your mother said.”

He does know what his mother said. It doesn’t reassure him in the slightest. He knows that his dad is a police officer, and it only makes him even more terrified. “I don’t want you to lock me up.” He says in a wobbly voice, his father’s hand nudging him down onto the pillows. “You’ll be sad and disappointed, and Mama will be sad and disappointed.”

“I won’t have to lock you up, okay?” Tata whispers, the bed creaking when he sits on the bed, and he tips his head up to look at his dad. “I know you. I know my son. You can’t let these dreams get to you- you’re a good boy.”

“Tata, you won’t stop loving me if I do something bad.” He rasps, voice lifting up at the end.

“No… of course not. Of course not.” His father presses his lips to his forehead, and his eyes flutters shut, breathing out in a huff.

“But you’ll be shamed forever.” He murmurs in a protest.

His dad laughs quietly into his hair, drawing back to lie down, an arm settling over his head. “Go to sleep, Mścisław. We’d love you even if you started the apocalypse.”

 

* * *

 

When Mścisław is Scott’s friend, he draws away from the people in his dreams. He spends less time mulling over kings and queens, spends less time with his English teacher, who is all too happy to teach him history and myths and legends. He spends less time matching up old faces to new faces on his chalkboard, because finally, there is something better.

Heather transfers to another middle school, kicking and crying, so it just becomes him and Scott. Scott, who wrinkles his nose in confusion when he hears his name, but keeps trying to learn it anyway. It makes him grin unabashedly when Scott stumbles shyly up his mother to ask her how his name is pronounced.

It ends up a disaster, but Mścisław discovers something new.

Scott refuses to call him by his last name, as the rest do. _I’m special, i’m your best friend,_ he repeats stubbornly. Scott refuses to call him by his last name even if it’s just about the only part of his name that he can pronounce.

“It has to be special.” He says, lying on top of him, gazing up at the ceiling of his room. “It has to be something no one’s ever called you!”

“My name is special.” He pouts, wriggling to dislodge Scott.

“Yeah,” Scott answers, sounding mournful. He is genuinely sorry that he can’t pronounce _Mścisław_. He thinks it’s a beautiful name, but his tongue, thick and clumsy, trips over the letters and vowels. The best he can do is _Mislow._ “But only your mummy and daddy can say it.” Despite his best efforts, Scott just- _can’t_.

Mścisław, who helps him practice, who has watched him practice, is flattered.

“It should be... short.” Scott declares, a small ‘oomph’ leaving him when he finally manages to roll him away. There is a smile curling his lips still, where he flops on the bed; he immediately turns around to face him. “It should be cool!”

“What’s a cool name?” he muses out loud, cocking his head to the side. “Mścisław Stilinski.” He tests, grinning at the way Scott’s face twists to hear his name. He knows Scott loves his name, though – Scott has told him so, time and time again. “Misty.” He says, before Scott gets it in his head to start trying to pronounce his name again – it will only end in pillow fights. “Linski. Mislinski.”

“Shorter than that.” Scott says, rolling over to face upwards. “Stil- _Stilinski’s_ a long name too. We should shorten that too.”

He crawls off his bed, scrabbling for a spare piece of paper. His handwriting isn’t good, not as pretty as Mam’s or as neat as Tata’s, but he’s trying, and as Tata’s always said – practice makes perfect. By writing, he is practicing. He thinks he’ll write his name down, but it occurs to him that he’s so much better at talking, even if he does stammer. He could talk and write at the same time, though.

“Mis.”

“Mis.” Scott repeats, bounding to the edge of the bed when he doesn’t return, his fingers clutching the mattress as he peers over the bed. “Mis Sti- _Stilin_ -ski?”

“I think you mean Mrs.” He points out, offering Scott the paper. Maybe Scott will be better at writing – he has seen Scott’s scrawl, and it is infinitely better than his own. He hates repeating his letters. It bores him to _death_. At Scott’s blank look, he says more slowly, “People call mummy Mrs Stilinski.”

Scott giggles. “Mrs Stilinski.” he says again, trying – and failing – to catch the pencil he throws at him. He ends up toppling backwards, falling out of sight for a second before he pops back up, his cheeks flushed pink. “Then you’d just be _Stilinski_. Stilinski St-Sti-linski.”

“We should combine them.”

“To make an even _shorter_ Stilinski.” Scott whispers, as if awed.

“Stlinski.”

“Sticks.” Scott offers, and it is such a terrible, terrible suggestion that he snorts with laughter, pulling himself up onto his bed to tackle Scott, his palms muffling the shrieks Scott is incredibly fond of making. He doesn’t want mama to come up and think he’s choking Scott to _death_ or anything.

“Not Sticks!” Scott screams, wriggling away from him, “Not Sticks!”

“Better not!” he sits up; he wants to make it clear that he is letting Scott escape. Scott gets the message.

“Stiski.” Scott gasps earnestly, grabbing a blue bear half sliding off his bed, sticking it between them as if he’s hiding behind it. It’s one of his least favourite bears though, so Scott can _have_ it.

“Stili. Silly. Sounds silly.” He sighs, trailing the pencil into small circles on the paper. He can’t help himself think of a name. If only he had gone to the library with Mama – he could’ve gotten a book of names. There must be so many names in the book of names. It doesn’t mean he’s forsaking his real name- at least, he doesn’t _think_ it does. He loves being Mścisław. “Sticky. Stiny. Still. Stall. Santa.”

“ _Santa_.” Scott whispers, half his face smushed into the back of the bear. He’s watching Mścisław with wide eyes over the bear’s head, and he’s not helping _at_ _all_. “Maybe we should just- just go back to Misty. Or- or Sti- Stiliski- _inski_.”

“Inski.”

“Stilis.”

“Tiles.”

“Stile.” Scott mumbles thoughtfully, gingerly putting the bear away with a last pat on its large head. He then barrels into him, small hands curling around his arms, pushing him onto his back with Scott above him again. He’s grinning though; he feels his own lips curl to match it. “Style! Like, _cool_. Like Style Stilinski. Style. _Style!_ ”

He doesn’t see the appeal. Scott doesn’t falter, launching off him to grab the forgotten piece of paper beside him, searching around the bed for that pencil. He is oddly excited now. Heather would love it. Heather can’t say his name too.

Scott scribbles _style_ on the paper, next to his scraggly _Mścisław._ “ _Style.”_

 _Oh_. “I thought,” he huffs, taking the pencil from Scott to write _stile_ beside it. “I thought it was like that. I thought it was like- like Stilinski, but- but cut in half. I think it’s good. I like it.”

“Isn’t stile a thing?” Scott points out, his eyes narrowed, like he’s glaring at the paper.

“I think it is.”

“Your name can’t be a thing.” Scott splutters, taking the pencil away to tap against his chin. He’s thinking hard, Mścisław can tell. He gets the crease between his eyebrows when he’s trying to work something out.

“Isn’t style a thing?” he asks, his head cocked. He grins when Scott stares at him, open mouthed.

“Okay,” Scott says slowly, “We can add _your_ Stile, and _my_ Style, _together_.”

“Then it’d be stiles,” which is also probably a thing. Are all names things? Clover is a flower, and a flower is a thing, but Clover still uses her name. He wonders if there are people called Doors, then. That would be super cool. “Cause,” he continues, remembering that he must always say his thoughts out loud. Mama says people can’t read them, so he has to say them. He supposes it’s good that people can’t read his thoughts – he thinks it’s cause he thinks too fast for them.

Scott nudges him.

“Cause- cause there’s two of them.” He finishes quickly, so he won’t forget again. Scott grins at him. “Like two doors are doors and not just- _door_.”

“Styles.” Scott says.

“Stiles.” He repeats.

Scott tackles him, screaming ‘Styles’ at the top of his lungs.

It makes Tata come running up the stairs.

 _Styles_ becomes _Stiles_ when Mścisław’s eighth birthday comes around.

 

 


End file.
